“Okay, while that’s pretty accurate, I suggested we steal one of Ethan’s cars,” she countered.
“Borrow,” I corrected her.
“Right. My bad. But it was me that concocted the borrowing.”
“True. But if I hadn’t convinced you to pretend to be human with me, none of this would have happened. Sooooo, it stands to reason all of this is my fault and therefore it’s totally my bad.”
Astrid winked at me and I almost laughed.
“I see what you’re doing there,” my best friend said. “But I’m not going to let you take the fall for the car. Period.”
“I don’t care about the car,” Ethan bellowed, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I’m furious because the two of you took on a Fairy with no backup. I had no idea where you were and neither did anyone else. Look at you. You both look like you’ve been through a war zone—you’re a bloody fucking mess. Cars are replaceable. You two are not.”
“Would Naked Twister help?” Astrid inquired.
“No,” Ethan said, biting back a smile with extreme effort. “While I appreciate the offer and may take you up on it, Naked Twister will not negate this one.”
Shit. He had a point. Nodding my head and looking down at my torn and charred clothes, I debated how to proceed. Astrid couldn’t be killed without the Sword of Death, but I could. Ethan would have a political shitshow of epic proportions if I bit the dust on his clock.
“Should I eat him?” Susu squealed.
“No. You should not eat Ethan,” I snapped and rolled my eyes.
Susu’s peal of laughter made me want to blast her insane little ass right out of the air. There was no way I was going to keep her. She was a fucking menace.
“Not Ethan,” Susu shrieked through her giggles. “The bad Fairy you brought back here. I can eat him so fast.”
“No,” The Shelia said. “He needs to be interrogated.”
Astrid raised her hand politely and waited. No one acknowledged her…
So I did—but I wished I hadn’t.
“Yes, Astrid?”
“I know you want to handle this clusterfuck alone, but I’m gonna just say there is little to no reason to interrogate The Ned. You already interrogated the crapola out of that jackhole and he sang like a bird… on fire.”
There was a seriously uncomfortable silence in the room as Ethan, Tiara and The Shelia exchanged shocked glances and then turned their attention back to me.
“The Ned?” Tiara gasped out, alarmed. “You guys took on The Ned? That fucker is a maniac.”
“I can’t believe this,” Ethan growled and began to pace the room as his magic bounced off the walls and almost became suffocating.
“Are you sure it was The Ned?” The Shelia asked doubtfully.
“Unless the assmonkey lied, his name is The Ned,” I confirmed wondering what the Hell the big deal was. He was a Fairy. He wanted me dead. I took care of the problem. End of story. What did his name matter?
“Describe him,” The Shelia demanded, now staring at me as if I’d grown a new head.
“Dude, seriously?” I asked with a small but clearly noticeable eye roll.
“Dude,” she shot back. “Dead serious… which I’m surprised you’re not, if you really took on The Ned.”
“Fine,” I groused. “Before or after our little chat?”
“Before,” Astrid said with a gag. “Definitely before, dude.”
“He’s blond.”
“Although not anymore,” Astrid volunteered with a thumbs up. “Bald now.”
“Correct,” I agreed with a grin. “He was a bit put out when I removed the hair from his head and attached it to his ass. But he deserved it. His punch to my jaw was no joke. I thought my brain fell out of my ear.”
“Most Fairies are blond. That isn’t pertinent,” The Shelia said, biting on her lip.
I was unsure if she was annoyed, pissed, trying not to smile or shocked that I gave The Ned some hair pants. Whatever. I liked her, but she was on my nerves at the moment.
“Do most Fairies have a massive teal blue dragon with green eyes tattooed on their chest?” I demanded, now not sure this was The Ned either.
The Sheila gasped and went pale. Tiara’s knees buckled. She dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes and bowed to me.
Clearly, it was The Ned.
“Holy shitballs. You really are the Fairy Queen,” Tiara whispered. “I mean, I know you are, but now I know-know you are.”
“Of course, she’s the Fairy Queen,” Astrid said, smacking her half-sister on the head.
“It’s not possible,” The Shelia mumbled, still staring at me dumbfounded. “You took The Ned down?”
“Only after he did his best to kill me where I stood,” I said tonelessly. “He didn’t leave me much of a choice.”
And that was an understatement. I’d been trained by The Kev. My love was the most feared Fairy warrior in the Universe. As intensely as he’d trained me, he didn’t want me dead. On the other hand, The Ned definitely wanted me dead and had made that fact abundantly clear. It had been the most violent thirty minutes I’d ever experienced. If this was a preview to my new life, I wanted an opt-out button.
“So both of you took him out?” Tiara asked, wildly impressed.
“Umm… no. We did not take out The Ned since the wankerface is still alive—albeit with no limbs and a seriously hairy ass. Sadly,” Astrid went on giving me the annoyed side eye with an impressively raised brow. “I didn’t get to do much since the Dairy Queen snapped her manicured fingers and put me behind an impenetrable wall. By the time I figured out how to break free, she was done. Trust me, Gemma made sure The Ned will never want to fuck with anyone ever again. And I’m talking never ever again.”
“What did you just call her?” The Shelia asked with a wince.
“Dairy Queen,” I told The Shelia with a grin. “I like it.”
Everyone mulled that over in silence for a moment. They weren’t quite sure if I was joking or serious. It was all kinds of awesomely awkward.
“You got information from The Ned?” The Shelia asked me, still slightly confused.
I nodded curtly and tried not to gag. The information I got was good—it was necessary if I planned to see tomorrow. How I’d gotten the information was the gross part.
“And?” Ethan demanded.
Heaving out a huge sigh, I straightened my spine and looked Ethan right in the eye. “Let’s just say there’s a faction that does not want me coming back to Zanthia. The Ned was sent to make sure that fantasy became a reality. He lost.”
“Duuuuuude, while that’s on point you missed all the gory details,” Astrid announced.
The Shelia and Tiara still appeared stunned. Ethan was still pissed and Susu? Susu was zipping around the room giggling like a loon and chattering about waxing The Ned’s ass.
“Who sent him?” The Shelia demanded as silver sparkles of fury burst from her fingertips.
“He couldn’t remember,” I replied flatly as my own magic began to bubble up causing a sparkling silver, pink and gold mist to float through the room.
“And he lost his leg for that one,” Astrid chimed in with pride. “Gemma just wiggled her finger and that fucker flew right off of his body.”
“Impressive,” Susu yelled with bloodthirsty excitement.
“No. It was gross,” I muttered under my breath.
“He was alone?” The Shelia continued her interrogation of me.
“He was,” I told her. “Apparently, they were expecting someone very different from me. Someone weak.”
“You are kick-asssssssssssss,” Susu sang as she did something akin to an air-twerk. “I would have eaten him.”
“Susu?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Cakehole. Shut it.”
“Roger that, my Dairy Queen,” Susu replied with a shrill giggle.
“Can I tell the rest?” Astrid pleaded.
“Do I have a choice?” I shot back.<
br />
A chorus of noes came from Tiara, The Shelia and Ethan.
Astrid sat down on the leather couch and made herself comfortable. Her grin was so wide, I almost laughed. However, I didn’t. I knew what was about to come out of her mouth.
“Soooooo, when The Ned refused to talk, Gemma shrugged her shoulders and smiled. It was all kinds of fabulous and scary. I may or may not have flipped the fucker the bird at this point, which he didn’t like, but Gemma did me one better. My girl chanted some kind of weird voodoo and started glowing an awesomely fucked up iridescent silver. The Ned didn’t seem quite as sure of himself at anymore—pretty sure he wet his hair pants. But anyhoo, our lovely sparkly Dairy Queen waved her hand and was suddenly a monster the size of a freakin’ SUV.”
“Did you eat him?” Susu screamed, bouncing around the room like a deranged ball from the bowels of Hell.
“I most certainly did not,” I hissed.
“Debatable,” Astrid chimed in with a laugh and I cringed. “Your fangs were positively obscene and you might have ingested an arm or two.”
“Only after he called The Kev a traitor,” I snapped, still furious about that one. “And it was two arms and a leg.”
“Holy shit,” Tiara muttered from her position on the floor with a huge grin on her lovely face. “You are a bad A.S.S.”
“Right?” Astrid said with glee. “It was off the wall insane. Ol’ Hair Pants was very agreeable at this point. And then…”
Astrid was still on a roll. Not good.
“Dude, I can take it from here,” I cut in. I didn’t want to hear a play-by-play description of me ingesting parts of The Ned. It would be seriously undignified to puke at the moment. “Mess with me all you want, but you cannot mess with my man or someone I love. So, if any of you really want to chat with The Ned, he’s tied up in iron in a cell in the basement. He’s not going anywhere fast as he has no arms or legs. And if you talk to him, you’ll have to yell since his ears seemed to have gone missing.”
“Remind me not to get on your bad fucking side,” Tiara mumbled with a grin as The Shelia simply stared at me.
“You’re different.” The Shelia stood and approached me. “Why are you different?”
“Different from what?” I asked, standing my ground. The Shelia looked so much like The Kev that it was eerie. However, I didn’t know her well enough yet to trust her completely.
“From before,” she said, stopping about three feet from me.
“Well,” I replied with an eye roll. “Since I can’t remember before, I can’t help you out there. I’m me. The same old me I’ve always been, but with a butt load of bells and whistles that I’m not sure I want.”
“But daa-yum, they’re impressive,” Astrid said, giving me another thumbs up.
“Thank you,” I replied with a slight grin. “Certainly came in handy today.”
“So all of this happened because you wanted to be human?” Ethan asked, clearly still trying to wrap his mind around the adventure gone wrong.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why wasn’t I invited to the party?” came a voice that I would know anywhere.
My heart began to race and my body tingled in reaction to being near the man who was my everything. Putting the way I felt about him into words was impossible. I knew him deep in my soul. He made sense to me in a way I couldn’t fully comprehend.
“Not exactly a party,” Ethan grumbled, seating himself next to Astrid on the couch and pulling her close. “More of a potential shitshow that ended well.”
“I see,” The Kev said, holding his ground in the doorway and watching me with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.
“Duuuude,” Astrid said with almost obnoxious pride. “Our girl was totally epic!”
“Good to hear, Krumecaca,” The Kev replied with a grin.
The Kev’s nickname for my BFF was hilarious and all kinds of terrible. I was very happy I hadn’t earned a Swedish cookie name. It was still strange to me that Fairies over a few thousand years got a The stuck to the front of their name. Thankfully, I was a long way off from that.
My Fairy was 2000 years old and didn’t look a freakin’ day over 30. The mind-boggling age difference had thrown me in the beginning but now seemed inconsequential. If I hadn’t been murdered five hundred years ago, I’d be close to the same age. Weird. So freakin’ weird.
“Gemma took on The Ned this afternoon,” The Shelia said, still staring at me. “And she’s still alive to tell.”
The Kev’s blue eyes flashed an eerie furious silver for only a brief second and he then quickly regained his composure. The large room had filled with his power so quickly everyone had to grab onto something so they wouldn’t be blown against the walls—everyone except me.
The Shelia and Ethan gaped in shock as I stood motionless against The Kev’s inhuman magic. The only one who seemed unsurprised by this feat was The Kev himself. A small smile pulled at his deliciously full lips and it was all I could do not to tackle him and kiss him silly. The man did unexplainable things to my insides.
“Amazing,” The Shelia whispered as she tentatively let go of the heavy desk she’d held onto for purchase.
“Not amazing at all,” The Kev countered. “Gemma’s power far exceeds mine.”
Crapballs, that was not something I wanted to hear—not that I believed it. If what The Kev said was accurate, I was more of a menace than Susu the Flying Freak. I didn’t want more magic than the man I adored with all of my heart. The world would be a risk if I were to fuck up. That responsibility was overwhelming—more overwhelming than all the Fairies in Zanthia wanting me dead. Maybe they had the right idea.
“No,” The Kev said harshly, giving me a look that made my chin drop to my chest. “Do not even think that.”
The last thing I wanted was for him to be disappointed. However, I was certain his brief moment of ire wasn’t directed at me. Even in anger his beauty took my breath away. The Kev stood about six foot four and was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen—the face of a god and the body of an Olympic champion.
As Fairies, we could take on the façade of anyone. Right now The Kev was in his own body—albeit tamped back with magic a bit. It was impossible for others to look at us in our true form—the beauty was blinding. However, I could see The Kev completely no matter what form he’d taken.
“The Ned?” he asked so quietly, everyone leaned in.
The tension in the room was palpable. Shit. The Kev had gone from carefree to scary warrior in the flip of a switch.
“The Ned,” I confirmed with a tight nod. “No choice.”
“Yep,” Astrid said. “And she kicked his sorry ass.”
“He’s alive?” The Kev questioned in a tone that made the hair on my arms stand up.
“Mostly,” I replied, not sure what was going on in The Kev’s mind.
Holding his hand out to me, he nodded to the rest of the occupants in the room. “Come with me. We have to talk.”
“Shall I…” The Shelia started.
“Yes,” The Kev replied flatly with his gaze still on me.
“Permanently?” his sister questioned.
“Yes.”
“Can I eat him?” Susu asked still darting around the room like a tiny tornado.
“All but his head,” The Kev answered.
“Okaaay,” I said, trying not to gag as I placed my hand in The Kev’s. “I’m pretty sure I’m following this cryptic conversation. Why do we need his head?”
“Proof,” The Kev said. “Proof of what you can do.”
“So I take it the Fairies are a literal bunch?”
“That’s one way to put it,” he replied, gently squeezing my hand.
Closing my eyes, I squeezed back. “And there’s no opt-out button?”
“None that I know of,” he said with a chuckle as he pulled me close.
My world was right again in his arms, but I couldn’t always be in his arms. I knew this and he knew it. And I was pretty sure the Fairies knew
it. They’d sent The Ned when The Kev was indisposed. I’d survived this one, but would I survive the others?
“Come with me,” The Kev whispered in my ear sending chills of all things good down my spine.
“Always,” I replied.
I just hoped we would have an always. At this point, I wasn’t too sure.
Chapter Four
“So, how was Hell?” I asked, trying to sound casual as we entered our Cressida House suite. Astrid had made sure we had a kick butt place to stay during the limbo we were living in. I knew the time had come for us to go home, so to speak, but the more I learned of home I was pretty sure I’d be happy living out my immortality with the Vampyres. I felt nothing for the Fairies I was slated to lead. I only felt something for the one who was with me right now.
Unsure if The Kev was displeased or okay with what had gone down, I was positive we were about to have a discussion about me taking on The Ned even though I’d had no choice in the matter. I’d chosen idle banter as my defense at the moment. Also, I really did want to know how Hell was—or at least why he’d gone.
The simple fact that I’d just seriously asked The Kev how Hell had been when he’d visited still amused me to no end. My life had been turned upside down and inside out in the last few years—as had Astrid’s. Lately mine had gotten a bit dicey but that seemed to be the way the game was played. The immortal world was not for the faint of heart or weenies.
“Hot. Hell was hot,” The Kev replied with a crooked grin as he led me to the kitchen and poured me a glass of my favorite white wine.
The luxurious suite was enormous. I’d called it home for the past two years since The Kev didn’t think it was safe for me to live in the house I’d grown up in anymore. I’d donated my childhood home the local Mossy Creek Women’s Shelter. The house didn’t hold precious memories for me, so it was quite easy to let it go. And I felt great that it was finally going to get some good and loving use.
Taking a sip, I stared at the man I loved over the rim of the glass and wondered if all of his answers this evening were going to be as cryptic. Two could play that game, but as time seemed to be running out, I didn’t want to play any games. What I wanted was to be in his strong arms and forget about my absurd and potentially deadly reality for a few minutes.
Fashionably Fabulous: Book Eleven of The Hot Damned Series Page 4
